


Stultus Montis

by Thefreudianslip



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: (past) Asra/Apprentice, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Apprentice/Julian, Blood Kink, Bottom Julian Devorak, Dom/sub, Dominant Apprentice, Groping, Julian Devorak's Route, Light BDSM, M/M, Masochism, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Romance, Sadism, Submissive Julian, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-10-26 06:10:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20737499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thefreudianslip/pseuds/Thefreudianslip
Summary: “So, you’re not just unafraid,” He heard Alizée purr somewhere outside his haze of married pain and pleasure, somewhere beyond his closed eyes, over the heaviness of his labored breathing “You like pain.” He spoke like a caress; like a steel hand in a velvet glove.“So fortunate, so fortunate, friend,” Ohgodohgodohgod, that hand on his wound, the fingers holding his chin in a vice-like grip, that smile he spied through his own half-lidded eyes as Alizée drew closer and closer. “Because I like to give pain.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a multi-chapter fic, so please stay tuned for more chapters coming up! Thank you for reading!

** Incipit**

Alizée had just bolted the shop's door, intent on a steaming cup of lilac tea to calm his nerves after an impromptu and highly irregular midnight visit from who-the-fuck-other-than-the Countess of Vesuvia when another intrusion set his teeth on edge and sent the deck of cards in his hand fluttering to the floor.

“Strange hours for a shop to keep,” a voice somewhere behind him had said, muffled as if from under a mask, and now he found himself braced with one hand against the shop's door, cursing through gritted teeth as ambitions of tea and sweet sleep slipped through his fingers like curls of smoke.

“Might have escaped your notice, _sir_,” Alizée kept his voice low, measured, tight with feigned courtesy. “That we're closed at the moment.” He inhaled deeply, lungs thick with the smoke of incense that always hung about the air in Asra's shop, whether it was burning or not, and grit his teeth against the ache of yet another migraine. “If you've a reading on your heart, our door opens at ten tomorrow, _although_,” His fingers walked spider-like down the wood of the door's bar. “It's customary for patrons to use the _front_ door.”

“Behind you, then.” the reply came almost lazily, with a flourish.

Alizée’s heart barely beat before he whirled to face the intruder, magic channeled into sizzling red beams of light from the tips of his fingers. The interloper dodged his attack just as quickly with a twirl of his ebon cape and a slight sashay to the left as the spell charred a smoking indent in the wall behind him. “Ah ha!” he barked from behind what Alizée immediately recognized as an eerie recreation of a plague doctor's mask, “En Garde, then!” The man affected an almost comical facsimile of a fighter's stance.

Sparing a glance at the ruined wall behind him, he turned back toward Alizée and strode forward in slow, measured steps, “I see the witch has taught you his tricks. I've seen them all before!”

Alizée felt the press of the door's wood against his back as his body drifted in reverse to add more distance between himself and his new friend. The stranger loomed above him by a decent six or more inches and while Stranger Man's build lent itself more to lanky at best compared to his own slightly stockier build, Alizée was _not_ a skilled brawler by any stretch of the word. With some small amusement, Alizée noticed that he had to pause briefly and duck under one of the many brightly colored hanging lanterns so as not to hit his head.

Seeing the only small chance of escape, Alizée slid to the left and sprinted toward the small table slightly behind the stranger, hoping he could perhaps vault over it for a hasty get-away to the stairs in the back. He could streak up the stairs, block the door-

Halted by the vice-like grip of a gloved hand around his wrist, he spun until the small of his back hit the lip of the sales counter, though not too hard, as if his strange new friend had been holding back. _Curious_.

The man placed both of his hands on either side of the counter, caging him in uncomfortable proximity, made far more ominous by their stark difference in height. “_Quickly now_,” the intruder breathed from under the mask, “Where is the witch?”

So, it's Asra this man is looking for. What sort of business was Asra getting up to on these sporadic journeys to wherever?

Perhaps it was lack of sleep, or curiosity, or the dream-like state of shock he found himself in after this night's events but reaching forward to knock the plague doctor's mask off the man's face felt very... _right_.

Mask clattering to the floor, he had the first opportunity to take in the man's features. Of course, Alizée recognized the pallid skin, decadently red hair, and heavy-lidded, dark eyes of Count Lucio's murderer from wanted posters littered about Vesuvia, but he noted with amusement, though the name escaped him, that they didn't quite get his nose right.

His eyes flickered up to meet the man's gaze and felt the corner of his mouth twitch. “Well,” Alizée swallowed hard, sliding his arm as subtly as he could behind the counter, “You'd be much more handsome if you weren't accosting me, friend.”

The man's cheeks bloomed pink, and Alizée's fingers gently closed around the mouth of a glass bottle behind the counter.

“N-never mind that, shopkeep!” his surprise-slackened mouth tightened into a rakish grin. “Tell me where the Witch is, and I'll, uhm, accost you no more.”

Alizée gasped, eyes widened in surprise as he turned to look toward the back door, neck aching with the speed and sharpness at which he'd turned. “Asra! Thank God you're here, I-”

As the man turned to look for Asra, shock painted on his colorless features, Alizée brought the bottle crashing overtop his head, and the man crumpled to the floor with a dull thud.

* * *

Among the properties of lilac Alizée most appreciated was the calming effect. The smell of lilac is so divine, and when steeped with lavender and a few buds of yarrow in steaming hot water, envelopes one in dream-like tranquility.

_Well_, Alizée thought as he watched the motionless man bound to his floor, _at least I made the tea_.

He inhaled the scent of his brew as he lifted the cup back to his lips and rolled his eyes in pleasure. Few things gave him the same skin-prickling rapture as a strong, steaming cup of lilac tea, something Asra never failed to exploit if Alizée ever found himself in one of his moods.

A thump and a weak moan interrupted his reverie. The man stirred groggily at first, eye opening to gaze at the ceiling, glazed and half-lidded, then popped open wide in panic as he no-doubt realized his limbs were constricted and he could move nothing but his head. Alizée's binding spell had made sure of that, lashing the stranger to the floor with glowing cords of golden light. Alizée smiled. Pretending to see Asra was a stroke of genius, if he did say so himself. He made a note to pat himself on the back later.

Alizée rested his chin in his palm, fingers curled around the delicious heat of his teacup as he leveled the man's eye, bulging with panic, with his own placid stare.

“Hello. Tea?” Alizée grinned, a little cruelly, and gestured toward the teapot opposite him.

“Wh- what? How?!” the man stammered.

“Magic,” Alizée's reply was droll, too cool to sound like himself, though he dismissed it quickly. The man _had_ broken into his master's shop, after all. _Rude_.

He traced the bottom of his lip languidly with the tip of his finger, gaze fixed on the swirling contents of his cup. “I took the liberty of relieving you of your things while you were napping,” His fingertips fluttered above the objects on the table as he inspected them again: a few rolls of parchment containing, much to his chagrin, indecipherable scribbles and splotched from a liquid which had long ago spilled and dried across the writing, a well-used quill, a tiny well of ink stoppered with cork and sealed with wax, a suspiciously heavy black leather satchel containing a wealth of currency from Vesuvia and beyond (some of which he did not recognize), a stained and worn, but clean handkerchief, meticulously rolled bundles of bandages, and finally a mean little foldable knife, no larger than a letter opener.

“Find anything _interesting_?” the man asked from the floor, grinning with curiously renewed confidence.

Ignoring him, Alizée closed his fingers carefully around the little knife and toyed with it idly. “Don't worry, I don't make a habit of taking things which aren't mine, but I couldn't resist a look. My, but this knife. Say, were you planning to use this on me? Or my master?” He traced the knife's edge lightly with a fingertip, the corner of his mouth curling.

“N-no! Never!” the man protested, shaking his head vigorously. Alizée could see his Adam’s apple dip up and down with the man's hard swallows. “I just wanted... ah, answers.”

“Answers,” Alizée murmured, almost too quiet for anyone else to hear. He tapped his finger against his chin thoughtfully and reached for Asra's deck. _Answers_. “Shall we ask the cards, then? Curious to hear questions so tantalizing, you'd break into my master's shop and man-handle me to answer.” He peered coquettishly at the man, eyebrow raised. “My wrist still hurts, you know.”

“I didn't mean to do that!” The tips of the stranger's ears reddened in shame.

“Just so. Your name, then.”

The man sputtered in surprise. “My- what?”

“Your name. I need your name for the reading.”

Relaxing a little, the man let his head rest on the floorboards. “... you can call me Julian.”

“Ah,” Alizée shuffled the deck carefully, “Well, Julian-who-broke-into-my-shop, let us see if the cards will give you the answers you crave.”

Slipping his eyes shut, he focused his energy as he laid the cards out face-down. A standard three-card reading should suffice. His long fingers hovered over a card and then flipped it reverently, opening his eyes.

Death.

_Hmmmmmm_.

He held the card up with his two fingers so Julian could see it. “Death, friend.”

Alizée had never seen a face shift so quickly; neutral, to shocked, to amused, to outright hysterical. Julian's laughter bounced off the shop's walls with cacophonic glee, his body vibrating under Alizée’s bonds. “Death! _Death_! Ha! Death cast her gaze on this wretch and turned away!”

Alizée rolled his eyes. “Just so. That’s not what it means, though.” He leaned back in his chair and began to shuffle Asra’s deck back together again, “You’ve a change coming, friend. Whatever you’re looking for; whatever you came seeking here? Let it go. Your past serves you no more than an open wound. Knit the flesh together and move on. On that note,” he moaned, stretching languidly, “I’m tired. The hour is too late, and I’ve promises to keep.”

He rose from his chair and knelt next to Julian. “Should I leave you here like this? Though, I don’t think you’ll harm me if I let you free. You’re _soft_,” he traced Julian’s cheek lightly with the tip of his finger, pleasure curling deep in his belly at the heat he felt there. Julian flushed deliciously at his touch, suddenly meek and trembling slightly.

“I like you like this,” Alizée purred, “You’re less trouble this way, and you won’t try to scare me again, big tall friend, not like this. Not under _my_ magic. I think you would like that too, wouldn’t you?” He punctuated the last three words with gentle pats on Julian’s ruddy cheek. Julian _moaned_.

With a sigh and a quick snap of his fingers, Alizée released his bonds and stood to stretch, languid and cat-like, unaffected by Julian scrambling to his feet, an awkward tangle of long limbs and twisting fabric. “Tonight’s game is over,” he yawned as Julian fumbled for his fallen mask and made a hasty retreat to the door, finding it still barred. Gingerly and perhaps a little guiltily, Julian reached for the bar to make his exit.

“I bid you goodnight, shopkeep.” He said with a hasty bow as he opened the door, speech slightly stilted, nearly breathless, and holding his cape around himself in an odd facsimile of bashfulness.

“Alizée,” came the reply, as he strode toward Julian. “And if you break into my shop and threaten me again like some villain from a bodice-ripper, my bawdy little friend, I’ve darker games than the one we played tonight, I assure you.”

* * *

He just wanted answers, he hadn’t meant to get himself worked up into a sticky mess in the dark of Mazelinka’s cramped hutch, teeth digging into the heel of his palm, his other hand vigorously working his aching cock.

Just hours ago, Julian had on his heart a small visit with Asra, that was all. Joke about old times, reminisce, “Hey, by the way, would you _terribly_ mind telling me _why_ you cursed me, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, oh you _know_ how I _hate to_ _impose_!”

He hadn’t expected to meet _him_, that dark-eyed little thing, with the wicked tongue, and he was so, so _slippery_. Julian mewled into his palm, the taste of copper curling deliciously around his tongue, just like the name of his enticing dark stranger, _Alizée_, whose image rippled in the pool of his mind as he punished his own cock with a too-strong grip that made his brain rattle.

Too much of Asra in that one, it was too easy to see, down to the wildly curling hair and cat-with-cream smile, the lazy way his half-lidded eyes drifted over Julian as if he were a mildly interesting piece of scenery, regarding him with obvious remiss and- _oh_. The fire in his belly, in his _loins_, was enough to immolate him on the instant.

Julian knew his way around town so to speak, and he’d been bound before, rendered helpless by magic as in his fonder memories with Asra, but it had been _so_ long since his last bout of slap and tickle, _years_ too long in fact. He slunk himself through the streets of Vesuvia like an alley cat, full-mast and barely cognizant until he could hide away and… take care of it.

Now he imagined tonight’s scenario if it had gone a little differently; amber eyes boring into him through black curls, Alizée’s weight straddling his hips, his cocoa skin reflecting candlelight like polished bronze, generous lips getting closer and closer to his own to culminate in a wonderfully wet, sloppy kiss, a hand tangled in his hair to pull cruelly at his scalp-.

A too-taught bowstring somewhere in his brain snapped and Julian muffled his final cry in the meat of his hand, shuddering through his release.

Moments later, damp with sweat and still catching his breath, he pulled his hand from between his legs and regarded the pearly ropes of his orgasm clinging wetly to his palm and thought, _I have got to stop meeting people like this_.


	2. De Sancti

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tentatively, he reached for the covers of the bed, the thought that he may be touching the Count’s ashes not lost on him, and ran his hand along it purposefully. He rubbed his palms together and warmed the ashes between his fingers.
> 
> Alizée closed his eyes, tried not to choke on the oppressive air, and concentrated, rolling his head back, sending his senses out to probe. Where are you, Count Lucio? 
> 
> “Oooooh, hello hello hello, what do we have here…” came the answer, a low growl from the darkness.

**De Sancti**

“I fear you’ve missed dinner,” The Countess intoned, the generous bow of her mouth set in a slight frown. Alizée inclined his head in apology, a little trick of courtly manners he remembered from… somewhere he couldn’t place.

“My apologies, Countess, I do hope you’ll forgive my tardiness. My journey here proved… very distracting. You’re too kind to indulge my lack of manners.”

His journey to the palace _had_ proven rife with distractions. He felt the weight of the little parcel of still-warm honeyed pumpkin bread in his satchel and for a moment, his mind swam with thoughts of Julian, whose face he’d glimpsed briefly in the throng while talking with Selasi, the baker.

Curious that a wanted man would saunter so brazenly about the market quarter and only show a sign of bother when his eyes found Alizée’s own in the crowd. Alizée had smiled when their eyes met and raised his hand in what he felt was a condescending gesture of greeting; one that was met with a slow blooming redness dappled across Julian’s cheeks before he disappeared, slack mouthed, lips whitened, into the throng.

The Countess smiled generously, returned his gesture with her own graceful tilt of the head, and steepled her hands together, seated at the head of her spacious dining table. “No matter, Alizée. I’m happy you accepted my invitation and,” her smile turned impish, half-lidded rust-colored eyes alight with a little wickedness. “I’m happy to indulge you anytime.”

Alizée smiled, grin half-cocked to the side as was habit for him and dipped into a modest bow. “And I you, Countess. I’m at your service.”

“Such manners,” her eyes narrowed with mirth. “Please do sit, we’ve much to discuss about my proposal. You must be tired from the journey. Please,” She gestured with her open palm to the seat nearest her left. “Portia, a bottle of the white will suffice, and can you bring a plate of Prakran Maish Krej and olives? Our guest looks famished.”

“Prakra. I’d guessed that you might be Prakran. Forgive me for speaking too familiarly, but it’s in the cheek bones.” Alizée tapped his finger lightly to his own prominent cheek bone, his most charming smile playing on his lips.

She rewarded him with a high, sparkling laugh as wine glasses were wordlessly set before them and filled with sweet white wine.

“Ah, yes. My home. You’re familiar, I take it?” Her eyebrows raised in interest, eyes widened, lending a softness to the angles of her face Alizée found immediately endearing.

“I’m from Za’atar, my Countess, across the Prakran sea to the North East.”

“Please, Alizée, call me Nadia. And Za’atar! I know it! The only place one can buy sea silk, I must say I still indulge in a few sea silk embroidered garments, given as gifts from your traders of course. No finer in all the world, and the softest and lightest you will touch, but of course you know.”

Alizée felt a pang of recognition, like lighting behind his eyes.

Sea silk, _of course_, woven from the byssus of pen shells found in the sea, native only to Za’ataran shores, by the gnarled hands of Za’atar’s oldest women. It takes hundreds of dives just to get a few grams of byssus, making it one of the rarest and most expensive luxuries in the world, something Za’atar is famous for; its people being the only ones to master the harvest and weaving of it. Only Weaver Women knew the secret craft and passed their knowledge to their daughters and granddaughters ceremoniously as a rite of passage. He owned none, of course, but something in him remembered the weightlessness of it, soft against his naked skin, the diaphanous golden shimmer of it in sunlight, but the memory came as quickly as it went; passed from his mind as if through a sieve.

“Yes, that and our spiced ram, though it is a trifle compared to Prakran swordfish.”

“Ah, yes, spiced swordfish. I crave nothing but spiced swordfish on warm nights; however, the staff can never seem to spice it quite right.” Her brows knitted together, her eyes distant and wistful for a moment before focusing on Alizée again. “However. We’ve much to discuss, you and I.”

Alizée turned his attention for a moment to the large portrait on the opposite wall. A macabre, and terrible thing, he thought, a parody of some Vesuvian religious tale, the details of which escaped him now. A regal and menacing goat at the center, cruelly sharp black claws gestured across a table laden with a sumptuous feast of fowl, rabbit, fruits and breads, and surrounded by a party of other animals regarding him with obvious adoration. The sight of it made Alizée shudder.

“Ah, yes. My late husband treasured that piece. He is meant to be the goat, you see. _Ever_ the _provider_.” Did Alizée detect the rolling of her scarlet eyes? “Do you like it?” She added, inspecting him closely.

“No,” Alizée answered, mouth suddenly dry.

“Just as well, it is a wretched thing, isn’t it?” She waved a hand dismissively as she took a generous sip of wine. “My husband, the Count, he had… exacting tastes. We are here to speak of him, in fact. Of the strange and gruesome circumstance of his passing; his murder.”

* * *

Alizée laid his satchel next to the bed, the large double doors of his room in the palace having been closed moments ago to leave him in cool suspended silence. Head swimming, he opened the parcel of bread in his hands, fortunately still warm and fresh and began to pick at it absent-mindedly as he sat cross-legged on the plush bed. Some might wring their hands while they think, some fidget, others may pace, as for Alizée, he ate. Thinking never went well on an empty stomach, he reasoned. 

The late Count Lucio of Vesuvia, burned alive in his own bed three years ago on the eve of his Masquerade, and the murder thought to be none other than his own soft Doctor Julian Devorak.

The suggestion of it perturbed him. The thought that that overgrown turkey of a man could be capable of burning a man alive in his own bed seemed laughable at best; preposterous. And yet it was Alizée’s assignment to find this man, bring him to the Countess, and see him hung for crimes he very much doubted Julian was capable of. This just made things far too complicated.

He had a mad thought of wandering amongst ashes, of running his fingertips over dusty draperies and prying secrets from stale air, to see the previously unseen, to prize these enigmas from the earth as a stubborn bulb from soil.

He stuffed another chunk of bread in his mouth, chewing slowly.

Count Lucio’s abandoned wing called to him.

* * *

It took Alizée no time at all to find Count Lucio’s wing, as his feet carried him intuitively deeper and deeper into the maze of the palace until the air smelled of neglect and the corridors darkened with something that felt to him of malice.

Count Lucio’s two beautiful, brilliantly white hounds, “Mercedes and Melchior,” Portia had called them, were nowhere to be found, having abandoned their sentry in the halls, likely for a soft place to sleep or more chamomile cakes. Here, Alizée was alone. _At least for now_, some prickling dread at the back of his brain told him.

The air grew more chill as he advanced further down the corridor that felt most _correct_, and he braced himself as he approached a large set of double doors, nostrils itching with the scent of dust and ash. Carefully, almost reverently, he placed a hand on the door pushed.

He summoned a heatless orange flam into the palm of his left hand for light and found a sconce to light so he could survey the room better.

Count Lucio’s chamber was as he’d imagined; a mere shadow of his extravagance, rich silks and velvet drapery caked in a layer of dust and ash. It felt to him like a metaphor as he stood in front of the richly draped bed, fingers nervously carding through his curls.

Tentatively, he reached for the covers of the bed, the thought that he may be touching the Count’s ashes not lost on him, and ran his hand along it purposefully. He rubbed his palms together and warmed the ashes between his fingers.

Alizée closed his eyes, tried not to choke on the oppressive air, and concentrated, rolling his head back, sending his senses out to probe. _Where are you, Count Lucio_?

“_Oooooh, hello hello hello, what do we have here_…” came the answer, a low growl from the darkness. 

Alizée gritted his teeth. Another mysterious presence behind him. He’d had just about enough of that for the week, he thought bitterly.

He slowly turned.

“Count Lucio.”

The barely corporeal spectre of a goat man stood behind him, probably seven or eight feet tall, left arm entirely missing, the stump ending in a gnarled scar, with red eyes glowing like fresh burning coals and twisting black horns.

“_It’s about time; I’ve only been here for, like, three years! Forgotten! Waiting for someone to come check_!” Alizée swallowed his panic and gaped at the spectre. “_Are… are others coming_?” Lucio asked, suddenly… soft.

“I came alone.”

“_Is this the way you treat your beloved Count! Does anybody in this city care?!_” A burst of warm air whirled through the room, blew through his curls.

“Calm down, my Count.” Alizée raised both of his hands palms out as an entreaty. “I came to talk with you.”

Count Lucio’s bristling seemed to soften then, his goat-like features untwisting from fury to curiosity, and finally to something tinged with sadness, perhaps something a little shy. The lines of his hulking, furry body shrunk a little as he demurred, “_Talk to me_?”

Alizée felt as if he were comforting a petulant child. “Yes. Talk. About what happened to you three years ago,” he said slowly, carefully, “About when you died.”

“_Died?!_” Lucio balked. “_Died! I’m not dead, it was just a little ‘oopsie,’ is all!_”

“An… an ‘_oopsie_’ turned you into a goat ghost?”

Alizée saw a flash of pointed teeth and quickly recovered, “A _handsome_ and _strong_ goat ghost, most fearsome to behold.”

“_Don’t patronize me! It _is_ fearsome. Too ugly for the sight of others, not fit to be seen!_” Another hot burst of air blasted Alizée in the face, seeping up his nostrils. The dramatics of this sad goat man gave Alizée sharp twinges of pain behind his eyes, the beginnings of another migraine.

“_Say… you’re a- a witch, right_?” The clawed fingers of his right hand wiggled in an exaggerated circle, a parody of casting. “_Magic?_”

Alizée nodded. “Yes. A caster.”

Lucio drew himself up, a grin spread generously across his long lips, eyes narrowed with interest. “_Okay. We’ll talk. But you gotta do something for me first, wizard-._”

“Alizée.”

“_Alizée, whatever, listen. You do a little something for me, we’ll talk all you want about the… the accident, but I want…_” Lucio turned his attention to a portrait behind him, something Alizée hadn’t noticed before, the most pristine thing in the room, curiously untouched by ashes or dust.

“_I want…_” Lucio trailed off; eyes fixed on the painting. A very handsome man at the center, rendered in a heroic pose standing with one booted foot upon a rock so that his knee bent in a stance of victory, resplendent in fine garments of garnet and flashing gold. Every detail painted lovingly, down to the glimmering golden left arm encased in armor, the man’s flaxen hair, the gleam of the deadly sword clutched in the claws of it. Lucio stroked his claws carefully, reverently down the image on the canvas.

“_I want to be beautiful again. Can you do that, Alizée? Make me beautiful, like I was?_” He turned to Alizée again, eyes wide and hopeful, ever the plump-faced child begging for sweeties.

Alizée sighed, fingers tangled in his curls. “I suppose… I can. It won’t work forever, it’s not meant to be permanent, I would need to keep coming back…” Perish the Goddamned thought, _alahit baladi_. “But it will make you as you were, at least in visage. I have a spell.”

Lucio clapped his claws to his furry chest in glee and practically danced a jig on his two hooves. “_Wow! Alizée, I knew you could do it! You’re a great wizard or whatever, the best! No wizard greater! I’ll have you dripping in diamonds and gold, every shopkeep and noble in this city will know your name, trust me! Oh, and make sure you get my nose right!_” He tapped a long claw against his snout, almost comically “_And the fur trim on my cape, I want that! I was _very_ partial to it. Okay-._” He straightened himself, arm stretched to his side, and drew a great breath, rolling his shoulders back. “_Where do you want me?_”

“Right there is fine,” Alizée muttered, drawing breath. His temples pulsed with a dull, thrumming ache. Sleep. He needed sleep. But first, make the goat man happy. “Those ashes- on the bed- are those your…?”

“_Uh… yeah. I guess._” Lucio shrugged noncommittally.

“Perfect. I’ll just… be taking those.”

He strode over to the bed, scooped a generous pile of ashes into his palms and gathered saliva into his mouth, spitting unceremoniously into the ashes, and ignored Count Lucio’s indignant “_Ew,_” from behind him. He rubbed his palms together and mixed the ashes and his saliva into a thin paste until he was satisfied.

He dipped his fingers into the paste and approached Lucio. “Be still, if you want this to work.” He began to draw a circle on the marble around Lucio with the paste, observed closely with interest by glowing red eyes. “_What are you…?_”

“_Shhhh_, my Count. I need silence, or you shall have to wait longer. Be patient.” He fought hard to keep the waspishness out of his voice, but the growing ache behind his eyes made it that much harder as he finished the circle and began to draw runes around the rim.

When he finished, he stood and wiped the paste from his hands on the first thing he saw- one of the drapes on the bed.

“_Hey! I loved those drapes-._”

“Needs must, my Count.” Alizée scolded as he dipped his hand onto the bed spread for another, smaller pile of ash and turned toward Lucio, cradling them in his palm.

“I need silence for this. I need to concentrate.”

He raised his palm to chest height and closed his eyes, his other hand poised palm-down over the ashes and concentrated, muttering the words of an incantation he barely remembered, focusing his intent into the ashes as Lucio squirmed impatiently in the circle.

Once satisfied with the setting of his intent, Alizée raised the ashes to his lips and gently blew a cloud of it toward the Count. Once, twice, three times he repeated this, and felt magic thrum in his body, in the marrow of his bones.

He opened his eyes and the man from the portrait, though a little more diaphanous and wispier, stood before him, red eyes wide with the unspoken expectations he no doubt had to fight hard to avoid vocalizing. “_W-well?!_” he stammered.

Alizée looked him up and down, impressed. So, this was the famous Count Lucio of Vesuvia, standing before him, though still merely a shade, almost exactly as he was in the portrait. He reached out tentatively to test a touch, and found with pleasure that, while the Count’s cheek felt as light as sea silk, he had a sort of weak foothold in the physical, enough to make his presence known, or maybe knock over a teacup. “Amazing,” he breathed. “And I think I got your nose right.” He stood back and folded his arms.

Like watching a flower bloom, he regarded with interest as the count looked down at his body, still not quite opaque in the gloomy light of the lone sconce, but faithful to every detail; the broad chest, tapered waist, long muscled legs ensconced in shiny black boots, and, yes, the fur trim on his cape, the fur he was very partial to. Alizée felt pride prickle at his scalp and warm his cheeks.

Lucio turned around and around, arms outstretched, a half-cocked smile on his lips and mirth twinkling in his eyes. “_Amazing!_ _Phenomenal!_” he breathed, and stepped toward Alizée to press several adoring kisses, like the fluttering of powdery butterfly wings, to his lips, the grasp of his hands on Alizée’s shoulders like a silken shawl.

Alizée blinked several times in rapid succession, felt the spicy heat of a blush creeping down his neck. Lucio grinned devilishly, stepping back with arms wide to gesture at his body, “_Well? Magnificent, isn’t it? What do you think?_” he added with a rakish wink.

“Truly,” Alizée managed, wanting to fan his face with his hand. “Magnificent.”

“Now,” he began, ignoring Lucio’s face falling into a frown at his business-like tone. He got the impression that the Count loved to entertain, to flirt, to revel in frivolities and idle fluff and rarely preferred to talk seriously. “On to what I need from you. Can you tell me about the murder?”

Lucio folded his arms, pouting like a child and muttered a little too quietly, “_I don’t remember…_”

Of all the-

_Tiba li janibiat_.

“You don’t _remember_?”

“_Look, one second I was in my bed, nobody here but me, and then next thing, like, FWOOM, BOOM, fire!_” Lucio gestured wildly in the air, arms flailing, and Alizée had to suppress a snort. “_And then I was like… well… you know._” Lucio mimed a goat’s horns with his fingers on his forehead.

Okay. That was something he could build on. Sort of.

“And Doctor Devorak?”

“_Jules?_” Lucio’s eyes widened with a hopeful glint, and he began to preen himself, running his one good hand through his hair to smooth it, “_What, did he talk about me?_”

“No.” He ignored Lucio’s disappointment and continued, “Dr. Devorak has been accused of your murder, having been seen at the scene shortly after you… burned. I wonder, what might Julian have been doing in your rooms at that hour?”

“_Well, he must have accepted my offer of a nightcap, to congratulate me on my awesome party and my beautiful costume, obviously._” Lucio’s persistent preening and the way he puffed his chest out reminded Alizée of an overgrown cockatoo. Emphasis on _cock_.

“Maybe so. Regardless, I don’t believe he’s responsible for your predicament, at present. Congratulations, my Count, you are my star witness.”

* * *

Even in the middle of the night, her orchid hair delicately mussed, and her eyes half-lidded with sleep, Nadia’s regality could not be questioned as she stood with one hand holding her fine silk robe closed over her night clothes, regarding her dead ex-husband with more calculation than surprise.

“As I live and breathe,” She said with no awe in a husky murmur, voice slightly lowered by disuse during her sleep.

“_Noddy!_” Lucio opened his arms to her, grin almost infectious. She made no move to reciprocate or step closer.

Buzzing and a little irrational from lack of sleep, Alizée cut in. “As you can see, Nadia, the Count of Vesuvia stands before us with interesting news. I will let you hear what he has to say for himself about his supposed murderer, Dr. Julian.”

“_He wasn’t even _there_, which was lame, because I invited him for a nightcap to celebrate my amazing party in my beautiful house and he didn’t even show up until after I blew up, it was _rude_._” Lucio crossed his arms sulkily, lips in a pout that Alizée wanted to cuff off his face.

“And so,” Nadia breathed slowly, “Dr. Devorak isn’t your murderer…”

“_Not unless he can shoot _fire_ with his stupid _brain_. Say, Ali, can _you_ do that?_”

Alizée snorted despite himself.

Of course, he could.

Nadia rubbed her temples, eyes closed, a hard set in her jaw that indicated something of pain. Perhaps she had migraines like his own. “I thank you, Alizée. Though, unfortunately, we are no closer to finding the murderer, I am happy to have eliminated a suspect. Dr. Devorak will be glad to be acquitted, I think. We’ll continue this on the morrow, I think. I should require you to find Dr. Devorak as soon as possible. Assure him of his innocence. We’ll need to find out if he’d seen anyone leaving the Count’s rooms while he was there, and…”

She sighed. “I’m tired, and I feel like I’m still dreaming.”

* * *

Alizée inhaled the cool night air, the smell of spiced street foods made by vendors just blocks over as he navigated Vesuvia’s back alleys in milky twilight. He’d had no destination in mind, having hovered his hands over Julian’s abandoned belongings at the shop to ask the energies where to go; and his feet carried him further and further into the early evening, first through the market quarter, then through twisting back alleyways, past shadowy alcoves and even more shadowy characters lurking around corners.

He ignored a cackling, hunch-backed, toothless old crone supporting herself on a knobby cane as she thrust a shiny bauble into his face and wheezed, “A pretty bauble for a pretty boy? Only fifteen gold pieces, and the curse isn’t too bad!”

The sizzle and crack of magic propelled his legs forward, around that corner, left on _that_ street until he felt something akin to a fishhook behind his navel and stopped abruptly, reading from the wooden sign swaying above his head, “The Rowdy Raven.” The painting on the sign was quite bawdy in his opinion; a crudely painted crescent moon, on the bottom of which rested a grinning raven holding an overflowing flagon in his wing.

In the marrow of his bones, he knew this was where he’d find Julian.

Nadia had called on him early that morning and he, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, took a sumptuous breakfast with her seated on a grand balcony overlooking the gardens. She’d steepled her fingers together again over a half-eaten scone, something Alizée had come to associate with her getting down to business, and cleared her throat.

“Alizée, I cannot thank you enough for last night’s revelations. I admit that I hadn’t expected you to work so quickly. How on this Earth was I lucky enough to conscript such a fastidious friend?” There was that generous smile again, transforming her features; turning her perhaps into the apple-cheeked young girl fresh off the ship from Prakra. Alizée found it irresistible. He was butter in her hot hands.

“No trouble at all. My intuition just…”

“Spoke to you.” She finished, eyes darkened a little.

“Yes.”

“Much like these dreams I’ve told you of.” The lines of her face pinched in worry. “Much like your magic, I suppose, these dreams compel me, as they compelled me to visit your shop on that night.” She tentatively, delicately reached across the table and touched her fingertips to Alizée’s hand. “And I am very glad I did.”

She withdrew her hand to return to her morning tea, sipping it delicately, ever the refined lady. “Unfortunately, my husband’s words last night… they brought more questions than answers, I’m afraid. Before this- some nights- I would lay awake and fret, for not one person could know what happened that night other than my husband. Now he speaks! He speaks and knows nothing. I am ashamed to tell you that I am not surprised; it is the Count’s character.”

Ah, that business. Lucio, though pleased to have his looks back, could not leave his wing, much to his extreme displeasure. The hot blasts of air he summoned reminded him of the desert wind storms back home in Za’atar when he’d tried to descend the steps into the palace and found that some force would pull him back again and again. Alizée and Nadia plied him with promises to soothe him: regular visits, bringing Mercedes and Melchior, the restoration of his sumptuous rooms, anything to get him to shut his gob and give them leave to go back to bed.

Nadia ran the tip of her tongue across her upper lip to catch an errant droplet of tea and inhaled through her clenched teeth. “Dr. Devorak is innocent, and yet we are no closer in solving the problem of my husband’s current state. I wish to see if he knows anything. I would entreat you to go fetch him, assure him of my pardon, and invite him to the palace. After the miracles you performed last night, I am sure this you can do.”

And so he did, and now he stood at the door of the Rowdy Raven, magic whispering deep in his mind that Julian was near, _so close so close_.

That was when the door opened, and Julian sauntered out, hand carding through his rumpled red hair, dressed casually in trousers and a loose, white open shirt, barking with laughter, cavalier, assuring someone inside, “I’m just going to get some fresh air, I’ll be right back!”

And their eyes met. And the air stilled. And Alizée smiled.

“Hello, big tall friend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it, an interlude in which Alizée has wines and dines Nadia and has a pow-wow with Goat Man. 
> 
> World-building and antics ensued. This was a ton of fun to write. 
> 
> Za'atar's language is Arabic peppered with a little French, as it was based very loosely on Réunion island, a French territory in the Indian Ocean that boasts a mix of French, Indian, Arabic, Spanish, and Chinese demographics. I speak very little Arabic, myself, so ran a few key phrases through Google translate. 
> 
> Fun fact: "Tiba li janibiat" loosely translates to "Well, fuck me sideways." :)
> 
> Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy.


	3. Flores De Mortuus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had not prepared himself to be caught off-guard by the little devil crouched in wait like a puma in the darkened alley outside The Rowdy Raven, eyes simmering with mirth and… a little mischief. 
> 
> “Hello, big tall friend.” Alizée breathed, his face half in shadow under the hood of his thin cloak and smiled, head slightly tilted.

Julian had rehearsed their second meeting more times than he could count, caught his own reflection in mirrors to look up coquettishly through his eyelashes, “_Oh, Alizée,_” he would say, smooth and charming, “_Fancy seeing you here. Say, would you care… to take a walk in the moonlight_?” and hold his arm out into the air for a hopefully blushing fantasy-Alizée to take. He wanted to bewitch him, somehow redeem himself from the debacle that was their first meeting in Asra’s shop.

He had not prepared himself to be caught off-guard by the little devil crouched in wait like a puma in the darkened alley outside The Rowdy Raven, eyes simmering with mirth and… a little mischief.

“_Hello, big tall friend_.” Alizée breathed, his face half in shadow under the hood of his thin cloak and smiled, head slightly tilted.

“Ah- Alizée!” Julian stammered, his hand nervously smoothing his hair back in place. He’d had three rounds of Salty Bitters already, played a few hands of cards with the crones (his winnings included a few dozen gold and a chipped, yellowing tooth from… something). He hadn’t expected… this.

“Say, Alizée… I hadn’t- I wanted to-. That’s a beautiful name, Alizée. A musical name. Where might one get a name like that, I wonder?” Oh, he was babbling now.

Alizée’s face split in his first genuinely pleased grin, the apples of his cheeks rounded, lending a charming boyishness, a beguiling softness to his face that made the tips of Julian’s ears tingle. “Za’atar. My home.”

Ah, that little country to the South of Prakra. Even during his sailing days, Julian had never seen it himself, but he’d heard many sailors in port-side watering holes talk of Za’atar’s seeming endless sunsets, its beautiful, bronze-skinned people with long, soft limbs and dark hair, its spicy delicacies, and of course the ever famous sea silk.

Of course, he’d meant to say all this elegantly, but all that came out was, “_Ah, sea silk!_” The highest points of Julian’s cheeks burned with embarrassment.

“Ha, yes. And our spiced ram. And Raki. We have other things, you know.” Alizée teased, and pulled the hood of his cloak down.

“Like your, _ah_, beautiful people-.” Julian hadn’t meant to stammer.

“Hmph, just so.” That genuine smile, Julian thought. His stomach did a few backflips.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in for a drink?” Alizée asked, smooth as butter. Far, far too smooth.

* * *

“Sooo you, ah, last I heard, you… you were bound for the palace. Dare I ask what brings you to this neck of the woods?

A normal person would have gripped the handle of the stein, but Alizée- oh strange and enchanting Alizée- wrapped the long, delicate fingers of both hands right around the middle and lifted the rim up to his lips to take a long, deep drink, eye contact unwavering. Then another. And then another. Julian’s eye widened with awe, and a little appreciation, as Alizée drained his Spring Cider to the very last drop and watched that pink tongue peek teasingly out to lick the foam off his upper lip.

_How_ Julian wanted to be the foam on that upper lip.

“You.” Alizée answered simply.

“I- to see _me_? _Oho_, I’m flattered, Alizée.” He couldn’t help but puff his chest out a little bit and lean into his elbows on the table.

“You don’t seem too bothered that people here recognize you. I saw you at the bar, you’re a _shameless_ flirt.” Alizée rested the apple of his cheek in his palm and watched him closely with those amber eyes.

“Ah, the people here aren’t very concerned with the wants of the palace, you see. Especially the bird.”

“Bird?” Alizée fiddled with the stein in his hand.

“Ha, yes, the patron raven. Barth, the barkeep over there,” He gestured his hand foppishly to the grizzled man wiping glasses with a dirty rag behind the counter, wearing his permanent scowl under a thick, greying mustache. “Says I’ve got more in common with that bird than anyone else he’s met. You see, he watches for guards. Obsessively, even. The very sight of the Count’s banner hurls him into hysterics. The guards make their rounds here once a night, at least.” He added quickly as the lines of Alizée’s face sharpened with curiosity.

“Oooh, how _dangerous_-.”

As if on cue, the raucous squawking and ringing of bells that could only be Malak cut through the din of the tavern and Julian sprang into action, taking Alizée’s arm in hand to make a hasty exit.

“Right on time,” He huffed, placing his hand at the small of Alizée’s back and gently pushing him toward the back exit as he elbowed a few flailing patrons out of their way, “After you, my dear.”

* * *

They clattered down streets, across alleys, around corners until they were both out of breath and Julian was sure no guards had followed him. Gasping for air and cursing the stitch in his side, he stopped to look around. They were near the aqueduct, with nothing but the sound of softly trickling water and the gentle Vesuvian breeze whistling through the streets between them.

“Aren’t you- standing a little close?” Alizée gasped, doubled over with his hand to his side, face painted with pain.

“Ah, are you alright? That was quite a little jaunt, wasn’t it? Not used to running front the law? I can’t blame you!” He placed his hand on Alizée’s shoulder. “And that water… it won’t hurt me, not with the way I am. Won’t hurt anyone anymore; it’s been harmless for ages, isn’t that something?”

“The plague,” Alizée straightened. Julian didn’t move his hand.

“Yes, that. I wonder, sometimes… who am I kidding, I wonder _all_ the time: what’s a plague doctor without a plague, Alizée?”

Alizée placed a warm hand on his cheek and carefully stroked a thumb over his rapidly warming flesh. “A doctor, friend.”

_Oh_. “Ah, well- yes. I do suppose so- hey! Careful!” he said a little too late, as Alizée slipped on a slick flagstone and slid into the red waters below.

Julian scrambled to the edge of the stream and caught hold of Alizée’s small wrist, yanking hard until he could get him back on solid ground.

“Are you alright? Breathing? Everything where it should be?” He worried as he hauled the small, sopping body up.

Alizée sputtered and coughed water onto the flagstones as Julian dragged him into a darker, quieter alley. This city was filled with them.

With horror, he realized that a vampire eel had gotten him, attached to Alizée’s side with its cruel, sucking mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth. Well, there was no way around this. Best course of treatment was to yank the vile thing off as quickly as possible. Peeling his glove from his perspiring hand, he balled it up and shoved it into Alizée’s open mouth, “Bite down, darling, this shouldn’t take more than a moment.”

Alizée did as he was bid. The thing wriggled disgustingly in his palm as he grasped it hard and pulled firmly. The sickening sound of suction followed, and he flung the creature as far away as he could, wincing at the sick, echoing slap of it against the flagstones.

He returned his attention to Alizée at once and pulled his glove gently away from Alizée’s teeth. “Are you alright? Can you hear me? Blink if you can.”

Alizée’s half lidded eyes slowly closed and opened as he let out a little moan of acknowledgement. “Hm, good. I’m going to look at that wound, now, hold still.”

Gingerly, he pulled the soaked fabric of Alizée’s shirt away from his skin- such fine, dark skin, even marred and clammy like this- and examined the wound. Vampire eels, the wretched little abominations, sometimes left teeth and, in more extreme cases, fat and pulsating venom sacs behind, and if those weren’t extracted as quickly as possible- he swallowed hard, palpitating the bleeding, puckered flesh around each tiny bite wound, all arranged in the circle of the eel’s creepy round mouth-hole.

No teeth or venom sacs to be found, only the mean little bite marks and too much blood mixed with venom. Quickly, he pulled a roll of bandages from inside his coat pocket and attempted to staunch the bleeding with firm presses directly to the bites with no luck. Blood oozed liberally now, and he could see Alizée’s bronze skin turning steadily paler.

“Damn. I can’t stop the bleeding. Alizée, I need you to hold still. This shouldn’t take more than a minute or two at most.” It was now or never, though he did promise himself not to show his mark on the first date again.

He removed his other glove and placed both hands on the bleeding wound, the familiar warmth of the mark activating at this throat as he drew the wound into himself, and felt the sting of the bite tearing at the flesh of his side, knew as the blood oozed into the fabric of his clothes. Stifling a little moan, he removed his hands and leaned into the ground to collect himself for a moment when he felt the weight of Alizée’s eyes on him.

“Do you recognize your master’s handiwork now? This is the curse he left me with, surely you know his work.” Asra. He would chat with _him_ later.

With a sigh, he lifted himself and moved toward Alizée, who was still supine on the ground. “Well? Are you alright now?”

Alizée took his hand and slowly pulled himself up into a sitting position.

“We have to stop meeting like this.” 

* * *

Guards, again. Didn’t they ever rest? Stop, have a chat, smoke their pipes, have a few rounds, you know, of the tasty variety?

But he soon found that Alizée had a talent for finding hidey-holes all around the city, this one being of particular interest as Julian spied a tell-tale azure glow between the rusted bars of a tall, neglected gate.

As the steps of the guards drew ever the nearer, Julian tried the gate with a tentative little rattle and found he couldn’t break the ruined and ancient lock. Quick as a cat, Alizée placed tips of his fingers on Julian’s wrist and tutted softly. The lock fell with a twist of Alizée’s wrist, allowing them passage into the overgrown garden beyond.

“Ah, Alizée, I should have known you’ve a talent for finding hidden beauty.”

It _was_ beautiful, down to the cracked statues and wildly creeping vines that overtook everything but the tree at the garden’s center, dappled with flowers Julian very much did recognize. Carefully, he plucked a bloom from a low-hanging branch and extended it toward Alizée, feeling a little… naughty.

“Deadly Starstrand. A single drop of poison distilled from this flower could kill a babe in its crib. It’s killed tyrants and kings, innocent and guilty. It could topple entire empires with a careless hand.” Julian twirled the stem in his hand, admiring its luminescence before smiling at Alizée.

“Do you still want it?”

Alizée snatched it from his hand with no hesitation. _My heart_, he thought.

“You said,” Alizée whispered slowly, “That the poison has to be distilled. Doesn’t that make it harmless to touch?”

“Well, I wouldn’t eat it if I were you, Alizée. But, you’re right, it probably won’t kill you like this.” Gingerly, almost too carefully, Julian plucked the flower from Alizée’s hand and tucked it behind his ear, touch lingering just a little on the soft skin there. He couldn’t help himself. He stood back and surveyed his work. The glowing azure of the flower against Alizée’s bronze skin and black curls put a hitch in his breath. Silently, he thanked all the patron Gods he knew from his time on the sea for allowing him to find this beautiful, wicked little thing.

“I’m going to lick it.”

What.

“Ah, no, I wouldn’t recommend-.”

“It has to be distilled, right? No harm done. I am going to lick it, friend. I’ve decided.” Alizée plucked the flower from his hair and brought it to his mouth, the tip of his tongue peeking out like a snake’s to touch one of the petals-

“_Ilovealittledanger,but-._”

“Ah, so you do. Were you testing me, friend? Just so. It was only a little game.” Alizée raised his eyebrow, a wicked little smile playing on his cupid’s bow lips as he drew the flower away and placed it gently in the pocket of his patterned vest as a macabre sort of boutonnière. It looked lovely.

“So, you’re not afraid of danger…” Alizée said, voice low, a little playfulness dancing on his features.

“Ah, afraid of danger? Why, Alizée, I live for it. Positively enchanted by danger, I am.” Julian puffed his chest out a little, and Alizée took a step forward.

“Mm, so pain doesn’t scare you either?” Those lips curled further into a slow, sensual grin, ever the cat with the canary. Julian swallowed the lump in his throat.

Oh, a little dangerous, this, and it pumped the very blood through his veins to savor the taste of trouble on his tongue as he inhaled.

“Why should it? In my line of work, you can’t be afraid of a little pain. One might say I have… ah… intimate knowledge of it.” He returned Alizée’s more predatory grin with a rakish smile of his own.

Alizée nodded, his lips straightened into a line, brow furrowed and stepped forward, placing a hand right on the wound in Julian’s side.

Oh.

_Oh_.

Julian swallowed, hard, and smiled. “Oho, are we dancing? I didn’t know you could. What, er. What’s your poison? Tango? Waltz?”

Alizée stepped forward again and placed his hand fully, firmly on the wound, sending sharp spikes of pain through his torso… and shivers of pleasure dancing like fingertips up his spine, then straight down to his cock.

“S-so,” he managed through the heat of his arousal, placing his hand on Alizée’s shoulder for balance as he was led backwards, up against the crumbling garden wall behind him. “Not the waltz, then. Pity, I’ve been known to cut a rug-.”

Alizée _squeezed_, Julian could swear he went blind. He gripped Alizée’s shoulder like a vice and threw his head back, couldn’t stop the low moan rumbling in his throat. Soft lips caressed his ear, “I prefer Dabke,” Alizée said, no small measure of mirth in his voice.

“So, you’re not just unafraid,” He heard Alizée purr somewhere outside his haze of married pain and pleasure, somewhere beyond his closed eyes, over the heaviness of his labored breathing “You _like_ pain.” He spoke like a caress; like a steel hand in a velvet glove.

“So fortunate, so fortunate, friend,” _Ohgodohgodohgod_, that hand on his wound, the fingers holding his chin in a vice-like grip, that smile he spied through his own half-lidded eyes as Alizée drew closer and closer. “Because I like to _give_ pain.” As he started to kiss Julian with those soft, warm lips, so much warmer than he thought they would be, Alizée dug his fingers into the wound. _Hard_.

Julian whimpered into the kiss, now at full mast and panting, opening his mouth for that delicious tongue to dip in and out, fucking his mouth as a simulation of what they were hopefully about to do.

Julian pulled away from the kiss for some much-needed air, he felt so light-headed, buzzed with adrenaline. “Alizée-.”

Then he was turned by those lithe little brown hands, flipped so that his chest met the wall and he heard the _fwap_ of his own hands against the crumbly stone and his yelp of surprise at the hardness of a clothed cock pressed firmly to the back of his thigh, and then his own low, keening groan, so unfamiliar in his own throat, so _thrilling_.

A hand fisted his hair, and he moaned low at the delicious sting prickling his scalp, at the firm pressure of Alizée’s hand splayed against the wound, which bled so freely, he could feel the stickiness of blood oozing from it into the fabric of his clothes. Wet lips pressed against his ear.

“Do you know what I did the night I met you in my shop? After I let you go?” Alizée’s hand twisted in his hair, eliciting a sharp gasp of pleasure, and Julian felt the electric crackle of desire further harden his cock to bursting within the tightness of his trousers. “I thought the filthiest things about you, _eaziziun_, the filthiest of thoughts. Of slapping that grin off your face, of making you kneel, naked and trembling with need at my feet with your hands bound, to wrap those soft, pink lips around my cock, and I fisted myself off right there as you, no doubt, walked just _blocks_ away,”

He’d snaked his hand between Julian’s legs and punctuated with a firm squeeze on Julian’s painfully swollen cock, drawing a hissing gasp from behind his clenched teeth. “Oh, _yes_, I thought of fucking you until your knees buckle, of the taste of your skin between my teeth, _ya lah min mutiea_, as you scream for me to fuck you again, harder, so _insatiable_, of my cum dripping between your legs, and I came with your name on my lips, my _alqlyl min alkrimlin,_ _Julian_.” His own name dripped from Alizée’s lips like molten honey and Julian saw stars blossom in the darkness behind his own closed lids.

“_Please_,” he choked, head rolling back to rest on Alizée’s shoulder. Alizée’s grip slackened on his hair and he danced his fingers down Julian’s jawline until his hand closed tenderly around his throat. “Please, what, Julian?” he purred, dipping the tip of his hot tongue into the shell of his ear. His name felt so right, so good flowing from that wicked little mouth like a fast-acting poison. “Tell me what you want.”

In a whimper through gritted teeth, Julian managed, “Please- fuck me! God, fuck me raw, I can take it, I’ll be so good for you, _please_…”

“Since you asked so nicely,” and he felt deft fingers working at the fastenings of his trousers-

The sudden stomp of booted feet on flagstones proved a _very_ unwelcome interruption which caused them both to jump and turn their heads toward the source of the sound.

Julian scowled deeply. _Fuck_. Guards. _Again_.

_Why_.

They couldn’t have been farther than around the corner- no time to think, barely a moment to do up his pants, he grabbed Alizée’s wrist as gently as he could and pulled him into the opposite street wordlessly, feet moving fast to put distance between themselves and their new friends.

He lead Alizée this way and that; around sharp corners and into narrow crevice-like alleys rank with the piss of drunkards and rotting produce, across the shadows on flagstone squares, and finally to the scrubby window of Mazelinka’s little house in the fishing quarter, so close to the wharf he could smell faintly on the breeze the stink of fish offal from the monger stalls and the salt of the ocean.

Without a word, no time for words really, he began to work at Mazelinka’s window with practiced accuracy. A little push on the corner here, a little wiggle there, squeeze the tip of a finger in that gap there, feel for the latch and – _plink_.

“_Oooh_, are we breaking in?” Came Alizée’s breathless whisper from behind him. He nearly jumped. Alizée’s silence during their little jaunt had cradled him in nothing but his thoughts and the rhythm of quiet feet on flagstone and he would have nearly forgotten Alizée’s presence if not for the delicate wrist he’d gripped in his hand.

“Er, uhm. Ah, yes, but desperate times call for dubious measures. Shhhh, I’ll just ah, give you a boost through here,” he said as he quietly slid the window open and held a hand out, inviting his companion to go through first. Alizée slithered through the opening like a practiced cat burglar and Julian flushed to the tops of his ears as Alizée’s shapely backside wiggled through, followed by his shapely legs.

Alizée poked his head out of the window when he was fully inside and held his hand out, sporting a naughty half-cocked smile, mischief alight in the golden hue of his eyes.

Getting through the window hadn’t been nearly as easy for Julian, unfortunately, and he had to suppress a yelp of pain as his head hit the bottom of the windowpane on the way in and crumpled into a heap of tangled limbs on the floor, overturning the pot of Dragon’s Breath standing sentry just under the sill. Its yellow petals grasped at him questioningly as Alizée helped him up with a surprisingly firm grip. He blamed the poison of the vampire eel for his uncharacteristic lack of coordination and cursed to himself and at the ache in his joints.

Long fingers lingered as Alizée brushed the dust off his clothes, and Julian opened his mouth to say, “_Thank you, you angel,_” when Mazelinka barreled through the front door, a shawl tightly wound about her head to keep the evening chill from her ears. 

“Ilya! Did you come in through the window again, you slippery boy?” She tutted, eyeing him with tender disapproval.

“Ah, Mazelinka, aren’t you a sight for the store eye! _Love_ the shawl, is it new?”

“You know it isn’t. I thought you might be about when I saw the guards… oh?” She turned her rusty brown eyes to Alizée at his right, whistling through the gap in her teeth. “And who’s this, then?”

“This is Alizée, a… a new friend.”

She sniffed with approval and jutted her chin toward Alizée. “Ah, Alizée. Make yourself comfortable, then, _scoot_.” Eyes surveying the window, she spotted the wilted Dragon’s Breath and squawked, the lines in her face deepening with censure.

“Ah, yes, the dragon’s breath, I apologize, it seems I can’t-.”

“Fit through the door, I know, I know. Aw, _feh_. Fetch that round pot for me, will you? Worrywart’s gone stale, I’ll kip ‘round back to the garden for some fresh, you boys sit tight, and fill that pot with water while yer at it.” She bustled out the back door and left the two of them alone.

Julian nodded to himself and strode over to the cabinet where all the pots were kept and began to rifle through it when he felt the warmth of Alizée’s hand atop his own and turned to see those golden eyes searching his face.

“Let me see the bite.” Alizée demanded.

“Oh, that? You want to take a look? Alright,” He laughed, swaying a little as he began to unbutton his coat from the bottom, slowly as if in tease, his eyebrow raised as he made a parody of smoldering bedroom eyes. He lifted his coat and then his shirt underneath while he swung the tassel of his trousers around like a Prakran dancer swings a Saliz.

He felt by now that the bite was completely healed, confirmed by the look of awe in Alizée’s eyes as he trailed curious fingers over the perfectly smooth, unbroken but still bloody flesh where the gash was. Julian fought expressing the ripple of pleasure those soft, reverent touches sent through is body as Alizée inspected him.

“_Remarkable_…” Alizée whispered, eyes wide with wonder.

“Are you impressed? Your master’s magic shouldn’t be a big surprise to you.” He asked as he turned slightly to grab Mazelinka’s pot. “The wounds never last long; a spell from a witch with a fear of commitmen-.”

He yelped as he felt the flat of Alizée’s tongue lapping at the drying blood on his skin and made to move backward. The pot he’d grabbed fell to the floor with a tinny clatter.

Oh, god.

Alizée sat back on his haunches, palms on his knees and licked his lips lasciviously. “We shall have to make another one, since you enjoyed the last so very much.” His eyes flicked up to meet Julian’s, pupils blown. “Would you like that?” Alizée asked slowly, deliciously.

_Ohhh_. _God_.

The back door gave a cacophonous creak as Mazelinka trudged through, a fresh-cut bundle of purple flowered Worrywart in her arms. She stopped at the look on Julian’s face and her eyes moved from Julian, swaying on his feet, to the pot on the floor.

Mazelinka sighed. “You’re dead on your feet, Ilya, tell me when it was you last slept?”

The room tilted a little and Julian shrugged, “Only three days. I’ve gone a lot longer, not to worry! I haven’t needed it as much since the curse, dear.”

“_FEH_! I’ll hear no more of it. Your eye is rolling, curse schmurse. You!” She brandished the wooden soup spoon she’d picked up at Julian. Very threateningly, he thought, reminded of his childhood in Nevivon, when he’d felt the smack of her spoon to the back of his head, his backside, and his knuckles far too many times for counting. He’d deserved it, though, certainly.

“Go have a lie-down or I’ll drag you to the guards, myself! Alizée,” She added, her tone slightly sweeter, “The boy’s like to be pinned before he gets a wink in. I’ll mind the soup; you go make sure Ilya’s at least horizontal until it’s ready.”

With that, Mazelinka turned toward the pot and threw a bit of sand in it.

Julian lead him to the curtain separating Mazelinka’s bedroom from the rest of the house and held it wide open with his most charming, “After you.” As he ducked through, Alizée looked at him, eyebrows raised, and mouthed “_Ilya_?”

Once they’d settled themselves behind the curtain, Julian shrugged, “An old name from the old country-_mmph_!” Abruptly, he’d been cut off by Alizée’s warm, demanding mouth on his own, then a harsh shove toward the bed and squawked in surprise as he landed with a dull thump, limbs akimbo.

“She said you’d have to be pinned. I’m happy to oblige.” Alizée rasped as he straddled him, taking both of his wrists and pinning them to the wall above his head.

“Well, if it’s you doing the pinning, trust me, I’m not going anywhere.” Nowhere. Not even an inch to the left, if he could help it.

“Good boy.” Alizée purred, eyes on him like a wolf watching a deer, and lowered his lips to meet his again.

All the muscles in his limbs uncoiled with pleasure, he moaned a little into the wet heat of Alizée’s kiss and opened his mouth immediately to invite the tongue hungrily tracing the seam of his lips. Alizée tasted of exotic spice and smoky tea; a mixture he wanted to drink down into himself like a draught. Ravenous and desperate, he arched himself into the kiss, up deeper into that delicious little mouth, so demanding and rough until he forgot how to breathe and pulled back for air.

Those lips, swollen and reddened by the act of kissing, smiled. “I could devour you, you know,” he whispered, lips moist against the shell of Julian’s ear. “Would you like that? If I unhinge my jaw like a serpent and swallow you whole…” He punctuated the last word with a wet lap of his tongue behind Julian’s ear. Julian squirmed, tilted his head back and arched his body into Alizée’s hips, begging and desperate, cock hard with need.

“Soup’s done!” The curtain ripped back and Mazelinka trudged through, a bowl of steaming soup in her hands. She eyed them suspiciously. “That’s enough for now, you two. Drink!” She thrust the bowl, nearly spilling the contents into Alizée’s waiting hands. “I’ll trust you to make sure he drinks that, Alizée.” She said, turning to go behind the partition.

“Be a good boy and drink.”

Obediently, Julian opened his mouth on the lip of the bowl and drank as Alizée tipped it toward him, savoring the sweet honeyed taste of it. He dared not move even when he could drink no more and a few droplets of the soup ran in rivulets down his chin and neck.

Eyes half-lidded in satisfaction, Alizée set the bowl to the side.

“She makes this for me every time I can’t sleep, bless her, the dear.” He already felt himself relaxing, limbs languid, head swimming. He licked at the seam of his own lips, grinning. “And it tastes… delicious.”

“Oh, is that so?” And Alizée’s tongue drew a line of fire from the base of his throat to his quivering lips to culminate in a wonderfully messy, rough kiss. It ended just as quickly as it began; Alizée grabbing to bowl and dismounting gracefully, with a finger to his lovely, just-bitten lips as he exited the room.

Too, too much, this. He sprawled his limbs out on the little bed so that they hung off awkwardly, but Mazelinka’s soup made him comfortable no matter what position he ended up in at the end of the night.

He let his mind wander as he heard indistinguishable voices from behind the curtain, Alizée and Mazelinka speaking in hushed tones, probably about him. Alizée-.

Alizée.

What a whirlwind this was turning out to be. He couldn’t suppress his pang of guilt though, as intoxicating this- whatever this- was, or could be. Pulling an unwitting beauty into this mess with his tendrils made him feel dirty; wrong. So much murder and intrigue, what had he done to deserve meeting a person like Alizée? To deserve his hot, demanding kisses, the surety of his caress, the soft, accented tenor of his whisper in his ear.

And there was the resemblance to Asra, which was certainly not lost on him, though the differences were stark as the similarities. Oh, yes, he felt wanted by Alizée, in ways Asra didn’t- couldn’t- want him.

They’d talk on the morrow. They had to; he had to. Cracks forming on his heart, he fell into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

Oh, how that plague mask itched. It always itched; the unyielding edges of it digging into his cheekbones, chaffing at the back of his head. He hated the way the world turned into a red haze through those glass goggles and the acrid smoke of burning herbs in the dungeons.

Candle in hand, he descended the steps into the dungeons, into the moist, alive darkness within. In his other hand was a tincture, meant for someone, meant for who?

Around another corner, through another door.

“_Oh, how wounded, how wounded, how sick, how hungry…_” whispered the dead from shadow, pale spidery hands grasping blindly, wantonly, for him. He knew, somehow, they could not touch him.

With every step, the corridor grew longer and longer, and the sureness in his footing faltered stride by stride until he came to a looming door, which opened curiously at his gesture to knock.

Inside, pitch the candlelight couldn’t touch until his feet moved him forward, to the little bed in the corner, to the waifish figure curled atop it.

Alizée turned toward him, face grey and gaunt, the sclera of his eyes a brilliant red. “_Doctor… Julian,_” he moaned, bony hand reaching for him.

“Your medicine, Alizée. Can you swallow?”

He drew nearer, the bottle shaking in his hand.

Weak hand batted at his chest. “_You left me, Julian. I’m dying, doctor, this body… its hold on me grows weaker…_”

“N-no, please!” Julian choked.

“_Julian,_” Cracked, ashen lips whispered before going still. Slack. Lifeless.

“I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

* * *

Alizée couldn’t sleep.

Too many thoughts, too many things ricocheting off the sides of his skull to welcome sweet sleep at this moment. The comforting warmth of Julian’s sleeping body felt good against his chest and thighs, but did little to quell the buzzing in his limbs. He yawned, stretched, and slipped soundlessly from under the covers, scalp prickling at the feel of air against his naked skin.

He never liked sleeping in clothes and he wasn’t going to start now. He groped for a throw blanket and wrapped it around his waist as a gesture of _some_ modesty and padded out into the moonlit kitchen. Small hours of the morning, it must have been, and he couldn’t have slept longer than a wink.

He felt a little guilty for having withheld the news of the Countess’s pardon from Julian, but he’d been… tantalized by the idea of adventure and couldn’t bring himself to cut the fun short too terribly soon. And it had been worth it, he mused, if only for the kisses and pets; for the taste of danger, though not true, curling around his tongue like ice cold Raki.

He smiled to himself. Any weak excuse to have a surreptitious cuddle in a forbidden place was just as good to him.

“N-no please!” Julian yelled from behind the partition and Alizée stood cautiously.

_Crash_. He heard limbs thump on the floor. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

Behind the partition, he saw Julian’s limbs tangled in the sheets on the floor and moved to untangle him immediately, dropping the blanket covering his modesty.

Julian’s head fell with a thump to the floor and he opened his eye doggedly. “Did I wake you?”

“No.”

“I- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you- _are you_?” His eye opened wide, probably couldn’t resist a glance between Alizée’s legs, burning red suddenly from the base of his neck to the tips of his ears.

“Just so. I never sleep in clothes. Were you having a nightmare?” Alizée asked, moving to place the sheet between his nakedness and Julian’s gaze and sat back on his haunches.

“I- yes. I was. Having a nightmare, that is.” He cleared his throat and raised himself to sit on the bed, resting his shaking hands on his knees. “But it wasn’t real. Was it?”

Alizée extended a hand to rest on Julian’s cheek. “No.”

Julian lifted his trembling hands and encircled his fingers around Alizée’s wrist and forearm, tracing patterns absentmindedly on his skin. It felt… good. “What are you doing out of bed?”

“Mm, I couldn’t sleep. Far too much on my mind.”

“Ah, I’m a veteran when it comes to insomnia,” He said, turning slightly to kiss the center of Alizée’s palm. “Have you tried laying supine in the darkness, consumed with guilt over every mistake you’ve ever made? If that doesn’t work, you could try pacing, beating your wings against the walls, clenching and unclenching your fist until your nails make your palms bleed, or feverishly write letters you know you’ll never send. Ah… it doesn’t help you fall asleep, but it passes the time.”

“Time. I wish we had more, you and I. But I’m just being selfish, aren’t I?”

Where was this coming from? Whatever dream it had been, Julian was clearly rattled. Alizée coaxed him wordlessly back into bed, ignoring Julian’s shocked expression at his brazen nakedness, and arranged their bodies so that Julian’s head rested on his chest and he could card his fingers through Julian’s hair.

Finally, he could feel Julian uncoil and they laid there for several moments in silence, Alizée carding his fingers through Julian’s curls, listening to his steady breathing.

“Do you believe in forgiveness?” Julian asked suddenly.

“Mm, yes. I do, in fact. Are you talking about how you murdered the Count?”

“I… well. Straight to the point, aren’t you, you curious little thing. Uh… I don’t know if I did. I don’t know _what_ I did.” He felt Julian sigh, a satisfying rumble on his chest.

“Well, you could always ask the Count himself.”

“No, I doubt he’d- WHAT?!”

“The Count. I drew him out and made him pretty again, and now he paces his wing, talking incessantly of parties and being neglected, it is quite annoying. I’ve never met a more frustrating ghost.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait… Count Lucio is… in the palace… walking around… talking?”

“Oh, very much so. Too much. And, most curiously, he says you didn’t do it. I came to deliver the Countess’s pardon, but… I’m sorry.”

He stroked his thumb across Julian’s slack mouth.

“I got distracted.”

* * *

“Have you seen this boy?” Yadira thrust the parchment into a toothless old crone’s face.

“Fuck off! Ya aint’ buyin’, I ain’t talkin’.” The woman spat, batting the poster away and tapping her cane waspishly against Yadira’s shins. Yadira bared her teeth and hissed, “Well, fuck you too,” under her breath, fingers itching to grab the braided whip at her hip, as the woman stalked away, resuming her chant of “Baubles! Magic pendants! Fifteen gold pieces each!” into the small throng in the alley.

It’d been three days since Yadira had docked on Vesuvian shores, and no closer to finding him than she was to finding a husband, which was to say: not at all. She’d reminded her mother numerous times that finding a suitable husband was as low on her list as decapitation, until she mostly gave up asking and left Yadira to continue doing what she liked, which was whatever she wanted as long as it spoke to her of adventure.

Crumpling the parchment a little in her fist, she stalked deeper into the alley, scanning for faces that looked a little more cooperative and wiped the sweat from her brow. Curses on the wet heat of Vesuvian summers, she was not used to it. _Her_ home had a lovely dry heat she was much more accustomed to, in which she could wear her fine oiled leathers and not break a sweat unless she was practicing with her zultar. Here, she wore the linen of sweaty commoners and the leather belts she had strapped to her chest and thighs chaffed uncomfortably.

It was time for a drink, she reasoned, and perhaps the patrons of this _Rowdy Raven_ would be a little more hospitable, though she doubted based on the name, and her rotten luck.

This place was more her speed, small and dark and crowded with dodgy strangers, just the way she _liked_. The ceiling hung low, fitted with ropes of gently tinkling bells and she spied a great raven nested in one of the rafters, eyeing her with suspicion.

She marched toward the bar and hoisted herself on a rickety stool, tapping her two gloved fingers on the lip of the bar to catch the barkeep’s attention.

Large, bald, a scar marring the expanse of the left side of his face from eyebrow to jaw, the barkeep barked from under his thick mustache, “What’s yer poison?”

“Have any Raki? I’m partial to it.”

“Uh,” The barkeep grunted, scratching his shiny head with fingers that reminded Yadira of fat sausages. “Got a dusty ol’ bottle from years ago, nobody comes in askin for the stuff. Might be a lil stale, girl.”

“No matter, you’re the only place that has it here, it seems. I’ll have a glass. Might want the whole bottle.” She swallowed, anticipating the cool tingle on her tongue. How she missed a tall, cold glass of Raki on a hot day.

“As you wish,” He huffed, pulling a dusty bottle of milky white liquor from under the bar. She licked her lips.

“You Za’ataran?” He Grumbled after a while as she took deep, grateful drinks from her glass.

She swallowed. “Ah, yes. That’s my home.”

“Not a surprise, only your people can stomach the stuff, that and some steely sailors. I remember it from my mercenary days. Say, the name’s Barth.”

“Yadira.” His meaty hand enveloped her own in a strong handshake.

“What brings ya here to Vesuvia?”

She fetched the crumpled poster from her belt and slammed it flat on the bar. “This. Have you seen this boy? Doesn’t seem like the kind of place he’d find himself in, but oh well.”

“_Erm_.” Barth grunted, squinting at the face drawn on the poster. “Who’s askin?”

“I am; his sister.”

He wiped a glass with a dirty rag in wide circles and stared at the poster, as if considering. “Yeah,” he said finally, “I seen ‘im. Here, n’fact. Left when the guards started pokin about, haven’t seen ‘im since. I don’t know nothin other’n that, m’afraid.”

“I see. Thank you anyway.” She drained the last dregs of her Raki and stood. “Keep that bottle safe for me, Barth, I should like to come back.”

Hm. So he’d gotten himself into a spot of trouble with the guards, eh? Not unlike Alizée to buck authority after all, he’d always been a little rebellious, even as a snot-nosed kid.

Well. Yadira would find her brother soon enough, and bring him home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the spiciest chapter to date. 
> 
> Music played a large role in this chapter, so here's some links for you. 
> 
> Alizée's song for this chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FcE3LmFfb8
> 
> Julian's song for this chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aZrRNlQUME
> 
> Alizée references Dabke, which is a traditional Iraqi/Lebanese dance performed at weddings and other happy occasions. It's like a mix between a line dance and tribal circle-dancing and Alizée LOVES it.
> 
> Here's a great example of Dabke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZcuhZa0rns
> 
> Nobody knows how to turn up like the Lebanese.
> 
> Also, I have a tumblr, for anyone who might be interested in some bloopers, shit-posts, and headcanons: https://juliandevwhoreak.tumblr.com/


	4. Memoriae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was about to turn around, head back into the warmth of Alizée’s arms upstairs, when he felt a hand grasp his hair and haul him back into a hard chest, and felt the sting of a blade against his Adam’s apple.
> 
> “Move, and I’ll slit you from groin to gullet,” the woman holding him said.

_Maqtoo’ min shajara_. That’s what they said about children like Isa; _cut from the tree_, meaning no family.

Papa had disappeared months ago at sea, like to have drowned in a shipwreck, the old Herb Women around Maman’s sickbed had whispered amongst themselves, seeming to think Isa could not hear or understand; a casualty of a dangerous storm on the deep Prakran sea, a piteous thing.

They’d been careful to tell him that Papa would come back someday, a weak effort to dispel the thick miasma of misery that hung about their house, to soothe Maman through coughing fits which left her weak and speechless.

Isa knew better. Papa was dead. He could feel it in the marrow of his bones and resolved to be the man of the house as he was needed until, he knew with the same surety, his Maman would join Papa in the Shadowlands. 

Maman’s heart sickness had warped into something deadly inside her, twisting her lungs, rending her organs and making her cough great spurts of blood, the whites of her eyes tinged red with broken blood vessels.

Still, he loved Maman, and held her hand until it went limp, then turned cold, and then stiff in that way the dead do.

There were no more Herb Women toward the very end, after they’d run out of coin with which to pay them for their healing and Isa had naught more than a couple of Tatcha to rub together. Maybe enough for two bowls of spiced broth to fill his belly, not much more.

When the fetid reek of Maman’s rot had permeated the house, he set himself to living with the other waif children in the streets, and that’s where he’d first heard it while begging oysters off the fish mongers: _Maqtoo’ min shajara_. They could tell, he guessed, knowing the look of a boy of barely eleven, with a dirty face, quick hands, and bare feet.

_I have Pa’s eyes_, he wanted to tell them. _I have Maman’s black curls_, though he knew too well all they’d see was a dirty, hungry little urchin. He’d grown to resent that phrase, _cut from the tree_. As if he’d never felt the weight of Pa’s hand ruffling his curls to make him smile, as if he’d never cuddled into the Maman’s warmth, as if he’d had no knowledge of a family and lived feral and starving in the alleys of Ja’bhat since birth.

So it was that he heard the phrase again, from somewhere behind him as he dug through trash bins for discarded apple cores and turned finally, a scowl pulling at the muscles of his mouth.

A boy no older than him stood there, wrapped in a thin, worn cloak the color of cream so that Isa could not see his face entirely, a peculiarly white hand extended to him in greeting.

“No Maman, no Pa, are you hungry friend?”

Isa stood still without accepting the boy’s hand. The stiffness of stubbornness worked at his jaw, taut as a bowstring. Hunger tore at his belly, and he suppressed his wince at the pangs of it.

“Who are you to ask?” He’d learned not to trust most of the other waifs in the streets. He did not blame them, for he understood what any person would do out of desperation to survive, to not spend one more night in pain from hunger. He’d had his meager crusts of bread and his last Sowhu stolen from him just nights ago and resolved to take better care.

“A friend. A friend who knows where you can get work. A hot meal every night; rice and meat. A safe place to sleep. A Sowhu or a Tatcha for your trouble.”

“Who gives this work? You?” Isa fisted the hem of his long shirt.

The boy gave a soft laugh; a laugh that sounded older than his years and sent a tremor up Isa’s spine. “No, friend. I’m only His disciple. Will you come, or no?”

Isa swallowed hard and gave a terse not. “I’ll go if I can see your face. Won’t trust anybody if I can’t see their face.”

With a slow, silent nod, the boy lifted the hood of his cloak away to reveal hair the white of starlight, skin so pale it appeared bloodless, and the milky, unfocused stare of what Isa immediately recognized as blindness.

Isa took a step back, recoiling as if he’d seen the sun itself as the boy laughed gently, almost condescendingly.

“Fear me not, friend. He transforms us in different ways. Come.”

Sunset gave way to milky twilight as Isa reluctantly followed the boy through a maze of alleyways, his stomach rumbling painfully the whole way.

“Who is ‘He,’ anyway?” Isa asked as the boy led him finally to a crumbling structure along side of the aqueduct, a gaping hole in the stone through which they were to crawl.

“He, of the Undying Flesh.” The boy said simply, beckoning for Isa to crawl on knees and elbows into the tunnel in front of them. Well, that didn’t sound like a nice name to Isa.

It seemed for miles he shimmied down the passageway with the boy behind him, which grew smaller and larger at intervals, his elbows and knees aching from scraping against jagged stone and silt. The passageway was oppressively dark, and Isa would have given up if not for the boy’s gentle hands on his waist, urging him forward.

They arrived, finally, at the mouth of a great, dark chasm, some sort of interior chamber dimly lit with candles placed in small hollows in the stone walls. Above the chittering and squealing of rats, Isa heard low whispers from deeper in the pit and cautiously stepped out onto the slippery stone floor.

The boy stepped out behind him and to Isa’s amazement, seemed to conjure a brilliant blue flame from nowhere to sit obediently in the palm of his hand so that their way was well-lit. With a smile and a finger to his lips, the boy led him forward into the darkness.

Huddled here and there were other children, of all ages, though none over manhood or womanhood that Isa could see, and they whispered uncharacteristically. These were not the same street rats Isa had grown accustomed to, running about the streets like shouting terrors, barking with laughter and snatching with quick hands. These children talked quietly and nodded at each other solemnly, though they ate bits of bread and meat with their fingers. Isa’s stomach clenched painfully with want as he was led further in.

“When will I eat?” Isa asked impatiently.

“_Soon,_” said the boy, the comforting pressure of his little hand on the small of Isa’s back guiding him forward through the throngs of softly whispering children until he could finally see an abundance of light from many, many candles surrounding the shrouded figure of a skeletal man who sat near the back wall.

Gently, as if Isa would break, the boy took him by the arm and lead him to where the man sat, cross-legged atop a moth-eaten cushion that looked to Isa as though it had seen much better days. He noticed the man’s skeletal feet peeking from under his robe were bare and white, wrapped in stained bandages like a leper.

“_Come, child. To me… closer_.” The man’s low, reedy voice sounded like the hissing of a sand snake in wait. Isa shuddered as he was gently pushed forward.

The shrouded man reached out and Isa discovered that his large hands, also skeletal and white, were twisted and malformed as he moved to touch Isa’s face with the tip of an ice-cold finger. “_Ah, yes… flesh of the young. Warm and giving. You serve me well already, child._”

“Wh-who are you?” Isa stammered. He could feel his face warping with terror.

The man raised his hands slowly in the air, caught the attention of the children milling about, and they grew silent. Every child sunk to their knees as if in prayer and to Isa’s horror, they began to chant:

“_He, of the Undying Flesh. He, of the Forsaken. He comes. He comes. He comes._”

Gradually, the man lowered his hood and Isa hadn’t time to study his skull-like face, the bright red orbs of his eyes, before his jaw opened wide, so _impossibly_ wide, and waves upon waves of shiny, red beetles skittered as if from his throat, crawling down his chest, moving in a unified tide to the floor.

Isa screamed.

* * *

“_Jules! What a pleasant surprise, so glad you came to see me!_” Count Lucio opened his arms wide for an embrace Alizée was sure Julian would not return, based on his disdainful sniff and the fact that he was suddenly very, _very_ interested in the patterns his booted toes could draw on the carpet.

In his time away from the palace, Alizée found that Lucio’s rooms had been restored to their former glamor and an ostentatious mix of reds and golds assaulted his eyes, from the drapes, to the velvet-lined walls, and the sumptuous carpet at their feet. It made his head hurt. Fortunately, the room was bereft of the ash and dust that made his nose itch.

“Erhm… yes, what a surprise, to uh… find you here and… mostly solid.” Julian folded his arms defensively, face painted with a faint blush.

“_Mmm, solid enough to touch, d’ya want a demonstration?_” Eyebrow raised, Lucio wiggled his fingers in the air lasciviously, his grin the absolute filthiest thing Alizée had seen in… well, that day.

“For the hundredth time. No.”

“I think, my Count,” Alizée cut in carefully, slowly. “That our Doctor Julian is in need of… clarification on what happened that night three years ago. He, and the rest of the city, is under the impression that he murdered you.”

“_Pfft,_” Count Lucio snorted. “_Jules? Kill me? _Nah_, it was just a little accident, is all. I do got a bone to pick with you, though, I invited you to a nightcap and you apparently didn’t show until I was already, y’know, _poof_._” He mimed an explosion with his hands and arms waving passionately in the air.

“I… don’t remember any of that.” Julian muttered.

Just so. He’d spoken of missing memories the night before, and Alizée felt a shiver of recognition dancing up his spine. He had gaping holes in his own memory, as well. As fond of his home as he was, he remembered little of it save for what he could find in the bundle of letters from his family Asra had handed him ceremoniously one night a few months prior.

“I think you should have these, Alizée. It’s time.” Asra had said, nervously twirling a finger in his snowy hair after he’d set the parcel down.

His hands had trembled, pulling the thin string of twine that held the letters together. Dozens of letters, from people saying they were his family, signed with names like Yadira, Safiyya, Sajaa, calling themselves by the name of “Sister,” and Gwenaëlle, apparently known by the name of “Maman.” _Mother_.

_Dear Snot-Nosed Brat_, one letter toward the bottom of the stack read, _I broke in a stallion the other day, the one Rafik said would give us no small measure of trouble. It reminded me of the time I snuck you into the stables far past curfew, we were looking for treasure, weren’t we? Dumb kids. We heard a Saj making rounds and hid in the hayloft, quiet as sand snakes, until the hay made you sneeze and you spooked the horses so bad, the braying and stomping made me drop my lantern and the crash alerted the Saj. Maman made us shovel dung for weeks after that. _

_Anyway, the stallion’s name is Nizaar. Figured it’d be the perfect tribute to our stupid, stubborn brother. What’s more, I broke him in good, he couldn’t buck me off for all the Zathri in Za’atar, the tenacious beast. _

_I wish you’d visit soon. I could saddle up Nizaar and you could ride Leila, that chestnut filly you were always so partial to. We could head to the cliffs and drink like we used to when you were just a skinny colt and I was just entering womanhood, make fun of the stuffy nobles and wrestle, just like old times._

_Leila’s doing great by the way, just birthed a good, strong colt, thought about naming it after you. _

_I know you’re busy with aunt Saafi’s old shop, Medhal’ha rest her soul, but you could write back once in a while, you know, or did you break your hands???_

_Love you, brother_

_Yadira_

Alizée’s lips parted, brows furrowed, as he continued to flip through the stack. So many unfamiliar words from unfamiliar people. His heart hurt for the loss of them, the loss of the family he seemed to know so well. Wordlessly, he sat all night in the lamplight of the shop, accepting cups of tea and gentle pats to his hair from Asra with little nods as he read each letter slowly.

As he neared the top of the stack, the letters got more desperate, more questioning. The pressure behind his eyes grew into another one of his migraines, yet he pushed on.

_My son_, the final letter read, _a year since we’ve last heard news of you. Are you well? Are you with us still? _

_I have spent too many sunsets and sunrises thinking on your safety, as a mother does, but I have not heard word in a year! _

_We are terrified for you. We hear news of a terrible plague in Vesuvia, of the stink of death, of bodies burning. It should be below me to beg, but I write to you not as the High Priestess of Medhal’ha, but as your mother, the one who bore you. _

_Little Sajaa asks of nothing but you, Safiyya complains of incessant nightmares of your body in ashes, and Yadira has given herself only to the horses and her beloved zultar, not returning to her rooms until the scantest rays of sunlight peek over the horizon. _

_We all grieve. _

_Tell us of your safety. Better yet, come home. I desire nothing but to see you, the thought sustains me more than food or drink. I’ve taken to pacing relentlessly in my rooms, thinking that every little change in the breeze brings news of your safety. _

_Please. Tell me you’re safe. _

_Maman_

The warm press of Asra’s lips on the crown of his head startled him.

“I’m sorry.” Asra muttered into his hair.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He stroked the pads of his fingers over the knuckles of Asra’s hand on his shoulder, staring at the letter on the table.

“I didn’t… want the memories to hurt you. Too much and you’d be in bed for days. I can’t… I didn’t think I could handle seeing you like that again. Not after the last time.”

Ah, the last time. When he’d remembered his language after hearing an old man speak it in the shop and had what felt like a seizure, felt a red-hot knife flay his brain open like a fish and could only lay in bed for days, the words of his mother tongue and unstoppable din in his mind, unable to stand even the low flickering of a candle flame lest the pain came back. Asra had locked the doors of the shop that week and stayed with him, speaking tenderly to him in a low voice, helping him to drink, to wash, to eat.

“Just so. Thank you, _habibata_, for this. For everything. And, you’re right, it feels like my head is splitting in two.”

Asra intertwined their fingers and gently lead him to the stairs. “Let’s go to bed.”

Now, here with Julian and The Count, the prospect of missing memories prickled at his scalp like the soft scrape of fingernails.

“Curious.” He brought his thumb to his lips, nibbled on his thumbnail absentmindedly. Not good to talk about this here.

“My Count,” He turned to Count Lucio. “I wish to speak more of this _accident_. Alone…” He punctuated this with a feather-light, flirtatious tap to the tip of Lucio’s nose, which wrinkled almost adorably. A bit of flattery to soften him for later, Alizée thought. “Could I be so lucky to take tea with you later?”

Of course, the Count couldn’t drink tea, not in this state, but _he_ didn’t need to know that. Alizée had the feeling that the Count loved the _idea_ of niceties more than the actual activities, anything that would appeal to his love of import and pomp.

Count Lucio’s face split into a wide grin. “_Anything for you, Ali._” He purred.

“_Send my babies in on the way out, would you?_”

“But of course, my Count.”

* * *

“You played him like a vielle,” Julian muttered as they descended the steps, two at a time in their haste to take leave of Count Lucio’s wing, bound for the Countess’s private balcony.

“Just so. Needs must, dear Ilya. _My_, are you jealous?” Alizée teased, his fingers worming out to his side for a playful brush against Julian’s hip.

“N-no, he’s barely corporeal! And as shameless and bold as he’s ever been, _ugh_.”

“Ah, _anzur man yatahadath_, look who’s talking, you rogue!”

They bickered cheerfully as they navigated the corridors, pinching and jostling each other until they heard the crash of broken glass behind them.

“_Ilyushka_.”

Nadia’s lady’s maid, Portia, stood behind them, shattered china and spilled tea on the marbled floor at her feet, eyes glued to Julian as if she’d seen a ghost, the white sheet of her face slack with shock.

“I- _Pasha_.” Julian stammered; lips drained of color as he stood stock-still.

She stumbled, then ran, and threw herself on him, narrowly missing Alizée so close beside him.

“You bastard!” She whispered, though her voice carried the inflection of rage as she took his ears in her little hands and pulled until he yelped. “What are you doing here in the palace, _are you trying to get yourself killed_?”

Alizée could have cut in, but he was far too entertained.

“You grew up strong, Pasha. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to see it.”

“I’ll show you _sorry_!” She grabbed the edges of his collar and pulled him bodily around the corner. “I’ll catch up with you later, Alizée, after we have a little _talk_,” she rumbled, her head poked around the corner to catch Alizée’s eyes.

Alizée stretched and listened to Julian’s low murmur, muttering broken words he only half-heard. “Sorry,” “_Ouch!_” and “Really!” cut with Portia’s tremulous soprano: “Idiot!” “Half-wit!” and “_Fuck’s sake!_”

A half-smile teasing at his lips, Alizée cupped his hands behind his head. If what little he remembered of his relationship with Yadira was any indication, they seemed like family.

After a few moments more, Julian and Portia emerged, Julian red to the tips of his ears and looking apprehensive, Portia blooming red on her pale chest and sniffling.

“Erm, Alizée… I’d like to introduce to you my lovely sister, Pasha-.”

“I’m _Portia_ here, Ilya.”

“Right, Vesuvians have an _awful_ time pronouncing Nevonese…”

* * *

“Congratulations on your pardon, Dr. Devorak.” Nadia steepled her fingers together and grinned. “Such happy news. Though, it brings us no closer to solving the matter at hand.” She motioned for more tea after she drained her cup.

“Yes, I’m… amazed, really.” Julian seemed very interested in the tablecloth, another blush bloomed across his cheeks.

“If you didn’t start the fire… I wonder, who did?” Nadia fixed him with a searching gaze.

“I… don’t think any of us know for certain.” Julian said.

“Might be that the cause of the fire was magical.” Asra’s voice, low and reedy, floated from the open doorway, catching them all by surprise.

“Asra!” Alizée rose from his chair and strode over to the doorway, pulling his friend in their familiar embrace of greeting, pecking him softly on the lips. “You’ve been gone for a while,” He said, holding both of Asra’s hand in his own.

“Indeed, wherever magicians go in the realms of their dreaming,” Asra said softly, eyes fixed on the distance with a little color spreading across his caramel cheeks.

“Regardless, we’re very glad to see you. I am, especially, pleased that you took my invitation to tea. Come! Sit!” Nadia gestured to the seat closest to her and motioned for a cup and saucer to be placed there for him.

Asra sat gracefully, cross-legged on the chair after kicking his shoes off.

“Have you anything to add, Asra?” Nadia asked.

“Just what I said,” Asra breathed, bringing a cup of steaming tea to his lips to blow gently at the surface. “That fire has magical origins. All but uhm… Lucio was untouched. The person who started that fire was a magician of some variety.”

“You’ve been to see him already?” Alizée asked, tracing his lips with his finger.

“Unfortunately,” Asra rolled his eyes. “He was very _rude_.”

* * *

“I’ve a plan to sus things out, but first we need to get to the shop. You left your things there, as well.” Alizée said as he and Julian descended the palace steps, bound for the shop.

The journey there was full of lighthearted jokes, some speculation, some intrigue. Julian loved intrigue. However, when Alizée deactivated the protection spells on the shops door and ushered them inside, the mood changed. Alizée grabbed his sleeve and led him up the stairs with a wry smile, something lustful alight in his eyes; a promise.

Alizée fell upon him then, all teeth and tongue, with hungry kisses, devouring kisses and, _oh yes_, Julian returned them with fervor, wanting to drink the other down, cradle him at the base of his throat, caress him with his tongue.

Mouth still working into the wet heat of Alizée’s, he let himself be pushed down, and down, and down into the softness of the bed, a bed he knew too well; _Asra’s bed_, a little voice in the back of his mind whispered, and he choked back memories of Asra coiled about him like a snake in these sheets, chased them away with the wandering fingers of his hands on the back of Alizée’s shoulders, let himself be distracted by the delicious pressure of Alizée’s hips pressing against his own and opened his legs wider, so wonton, to grant more access.

Oh, this; this was not the kind of pleasure Asra could give, too full of passion, this. Teeth scraped at his neck, looking for purchase against sensitive flesh and he whined despite himself, a hand tangled in Alizée’s hair to tell him what his confused tongue couldn’t, yes, here my love, take it, bite.

And Alizée did, and Julian saw stars exploding in the blackness behind his closed lids, screaming, cock aching and leaking with need in the oppressive tightness of his trousers as he bucked up against Alizée’s own hardened cock and the friction was… was perfect.

Alizée, and his wicked teeth, pulled away so his hands could yank at the bottom of Julian’s shirt and push it up his torso, brushing against his stiffened nipples, over his collar bones, his head, his arms, until finally it was bunched up at his wrist and he felt Alizée bind his wrists there above his head. Julian whined, pathetically, when he realized that he wouldn’t be able to touch Alizée like this, though he loved so dearly the feeling of being bound.

Alizée quieted him with the tip of his finger against Julian’s wet, open lips.

“You’ll take your pleasure of me later, _habibata_, but now, I take my pleasure of you,” He breathed, before taking Julian’s mouth in another bruising kiss.

Pleasure slithered up his spine at the kisses to the bruised and tender flesh of his neck, to his collar bones, and chest as Alizée dragged his mouth down to a hard nipple and traced it with the tip of his tongue, making Julian writhe, his head pressed back into the softness of the mattress.

When Alizée’s teeth clamped down on his sensitive nub, Julian screamed again and rocked his hips into him desperately as he worried the nipple between his teeth with increasing pressure.

“_Hmmmm_,” Alizée murmured as he kissed the hurting flesh there, but he didn’t finish his thought before he trailed more kisses down his chest, down his quivering stomach, drawing a trail of fire straight down into his bursting cock. Julian moaned at this wet pleasure, something he imagined a woman might feel, as Alizée peppered more little, moist kisses to the hair below his belly button, to the sensitive flesh just above the top of his trousers and paused, finally, to begin undoing the fastenings of his trousers.

They both gasped as Julian’s cock, red and leaking, burst free and Alizée licked his lips, anticipation alight in his amber eyes, pupils blown.

_I did that to him_, Julian thought, and warmth curled in on itself like flames in his belly.

Teasingly slow, Alizée dipped his head to taste the slick tip of Julian’s cock with his tongue and lips. Julian tried to buck into wetness of that sweet mouth, but felt the firm pressure of Alizée’s hands flat on the inside of his thighs to keep him from moving.

Julian resigned himself to low, throaty moans as Alizée mouthed the underside of his cock with hungry, wet lips, slurping up his slick with his tongue and working at the sensitive vein on the underside of his cock, wringing whimpers from his lips, his body writhing helplessly under Alizée’s ministrations. Hands worked at his trousers, finally, to strip him of them and he felt cool air on the flushed skin of his thighs finally as Alizée threw his trousers to the floor.

Alizée leaned back, caressing his thigh with a warm hand, and moved his eyes reverently up and down Julian’s naked body before he moved those fingers to wrap around his cock and stroke lightly.

“What do you want, _habibata_?” He asked throatily, “What do you want me to do to you?”

Julian threw his head back, face flushed, burning, and gasped, “Fuck me. Please. I want your cock; I want you inside- fuck!” He keened as fingers tightened around the base of his length, panting.

With a lingering kiss, Alizée wriggled out of his clothes as quickly as he could, revealing his radiant nakedness and his own hard, almost purple cock; not abnormally long, but thick and slightly curved. Julian bit his lip as Alizée bent over to the side of the bed to grab a bottle of bed oils,_ Asra’s bed oils_, he reminded himself. Slowly, he uncorked it to coat his fingers in slick, sweet-smelling oil.

He settled back between Julian’s legs and gently nudged them wider, placing the tip of a slippery finger against his hole. Alizée’s eyes met his own, a question dancing in them.

“_Yes_.” Julian begged, angling his hips so that Alizée had better access.

He shuddered as the tip of Alizée’s finger swirled around the pucker of his hole, massaging slowly before slipping in and fucking him gently. After a few thrusts, Julian squirmed and panted “More,” begging for fullness, for the burn and sting of real penetration.

“Of _course_,” Alizée breathed, and slowly, teasingly slid another finger inside him. He noticed that, as he worked his hole open, Alizée bit his lip and watched intently, small sounds of pleasure slipping from the back his throat as he scissored his fingers inside him.

This, he missed; the feeling of being slowly worked open, of anticipating the fullness of something inside him, of being stretched painfully, of being flayed open by a thick cock.

Julian’s fingers scratched uselessly at the wall above him when the blunt tip of Alizée’s cock pressed into him, finally, and they both moaned low and needy when he slowly pushed in.

Not slow, tender lovemaking, this. This was too ardent, too urgent and rough, Alizée’s thrusts quickly developing a punishing pace as they pressed together, chest to chest. Julian’s thighs wrapped around the small of Alizée’s back as they moved together, Alizée’s throaty moans muffled in the flesh of his neck.

No man he’d had ever made this much noise, and Julian’s arousal crested, swelled at the symphony of breathy sounds rising from Alizée’s chest with every powerful thrust like the coming of the tide.

“_Bystreye pozhaluysta_,” Julian panted, forgetting the Common language altogether.

Alizée reached up to his wrists and ripped the shirt binding them away in one deft move, wet lips caressing his ear. “Nails. On my back. Please.”

Julian wasted no time heeding Alizée’s command, hands and nails scraping down the flesh of Alizée’s back as his thrusts grew harsher and more erratic, angling so they targeted that secret, quivering spot deep inside Julian that made him cry out, pushed him closer to his release.

Oh, he must be raising angry welts now, his hands clawing into Alizée’s back as Alizée screamed and bucked into him, hips slamming violently, cock hammering inside him with a terrible, desperate rhythm as they both shattered, Alizée first, then Julian. They sang sighs and moans into each other’s open, panting mouths, one after the other, like beads strung together with twine, one breathy whimper into the next as their bodies unwound against each other.

* * *

After they’d been cuddled together for a while, Alizée traced the tip of his finger around a soft nipple and smiled as his ministrations coaxed it back to stiffness. Julian shuddered pleasantly.

“Tell me, why ‘Julian’?”

Julian’s arm tightened around his side, pulling him closer to his chest and chuffed softly at the ceiling. Alizée had never seen him so relaxed, so pliant. “A novel. Swashbuckling rogues and a little bodice-ripping, a fine little romance. I… read it on the field instead of sleeping, when I apprenticed on battle fields. Gory business, that. One needs ah… a little escapism in such a gruesome little pocket of life, I suppose. When you dream of blood and screams and sawing off limbs, a silly little novel is preferable to sleep.” His fingers paused their caresses to Alizée’s hip and squeezed slightly, as if in purchase for comfort.

“Just so. Who was Julian?” Alizée nuzzled his cheek into Julian’s chest, taking pleasure in the tickle of Julian’s chest hair against his skin as he moved.

“The hero, of course, none else! Pirate Captain Julian Wratheburn of the Threepenny Harlot, and man after my own heart, erm- besides you, of course.” He bent down to press a sweet kiss to Alizée’s forehead.

“And did he fall in love?” Alizée asked as he carded fingers through the surprising softness of Julian’s wispy chest hair.

“_Mmm_, yes, ass over teakettle for a Molovian gypsy princess named M’irabh, with, hmm, curly black hair, and dark eyes, and a mean left hook.” Julian mimed a haymaker in the air with his other hand.

“The sound of it is familiar,” Alizée admitted, a smile teasing at his lips as he tangled Julian’s leg between his own with a playful little thrust at his thigh, wringing a low, longing sound from deep in Julian’s throat.

“Since we’re in the habit of asking questions…” Julian’s voice was a pleasant rumble in his chest as he reached down, almost reverently, to finger the glinting golden hoop through Alizée’s left nipple.

“_Mmm_, that feels nice. It’s a rite of passage. All boys in Za’atar get them from the priests of Medhal’ha at seventeen; to show we’ve entered manhood. Do you like them?” He asked, looking up at Julian’s flushed face through his eyelashes. “I quite like it when they’re pulled… want to try?”

He rose to straddle Julian’s hips and bit his bottom lip as long fingers caressed the skin of his chest, so lovingly, so worshipful, until Julian’s trembling fingers found leverage on the little rings and-

A small sound. A creak. Alizée picked it up through the miasma of renewed arousal like scent to a hound. “I don’t believe we’re alone anymore, ya eazizaa.”

* * *

Julian had jumped at the chance to investigate the noise, intent on being a little more useful than… their previous escapades.

He launched himself out of the bed and grabbed for his trousers and shirt, quick as lightning, leaving Alizée bemused and still on the bed, inviting and delicious and so, so naked in the low lamplight.

Julian licked the seam of his lips once he was decent and reluctantly began his ascent toward the bottom of the stairs, head not quite rid of the image of those pert little brown nipples decorated with hoops. It hadn’t been the first time he’d seen them, but it had been the first time he’d been given permission to touch and- oooh. How nice, the sudden slackness in Alizée’s face as he lightly tugged. He wanted to dip his head down to taste them, and the thought made him nearly float down the stairs.

The shop space below was dimly lit and quiet as Julian cautiously approached the last step, eyes darting this way and that to catch movement in the shadows. Nothing.

He stepped out near the sales counter, and inspected the front door. No signs for forced entry, not even a scratch or scuff to be seen. All seemed in order, and he should know. He broke into the place, himself.

He was about to turn around, head back into the warmth of Alizée’s arms upstairs, when he felt a hand grasp his hair and haul him back into a hard chest, and felt the sting of a blade against his Adam’s apple.

“Move, and I’ll slit you from groin to gullet,” the woman holding him said.

“Well, er, how do you do? My name is Julian, and _you_ are?” Julian said, hands palm-out in the air. This hadn’t been the first time he’d seen the business end of a blade, and wouldn’t be first time he’d talk himself out of it, too.

“Shut your mouth, _aljinayiyat alqadhra_.” She said, tightening her grip in his hair. “You’re going to tell me where you’ve been keeping my brother.”

* * *

Too silent and too long, Julian had been gone, and Alizée was close to pouting. Wrapping a sheet around himself just in case, he made his ascent downstairs, expecting to find Julian puttering around in search of no one.

Alizée had not, however, expected to walk down the stairs and see his beloved sister with the blade of her dangerously glinting zultar at his lover’s throat.

“Yadira, _min ajl hubin Medhal’ha_, put it _down_.”

Yes, Yadira had not changed much from memory, still lean and heavily muscled, her chestnut skin with its healthy golden sheen from her days of work with horses in the sun. Stern, still, her long, angular face- so much like their father’s- with high cheek bones and a strong, well-shaped jaw. The only thing that was different was her hair, recently cropped close to her head and falling, jagged, across her forehead. She’d used to keep it in a tight, oiled braid that fell down to her waist when they were younger; Alizée used to playfully tug it, much to her chagrin, to get her attention.

Julian gave him a weak little smile, a slight quirk of his colorless lips. “Ah- Alizée, you know this fine woman-”

“And let this little, wriggling leech free? I think not. He speaks too familiarly; he has the tongue of a crook.” The hard set of Yadira’s jaw and her scowl made her look more severe than she had right to.

“Now, now, I’m by all accounts a rotten scoundrel, but we don’t need to start throwing words like ‘crook’ around, plea-whooo!” Yadira pushed the blade of her zultar harder against Julian’s throat to quiet him.

“_You talk too much_.” She said through gritted teeth.

“Ilya, _'aeazu ma eindi_, let the adults talk.” Alizée cut in, and readjusted the sheet around his waist a little self-consciously. “Really, ‘Dira, is this necessary?”

“I sailed to Vesuvia after years of no word in search of you, marched through this cursed place’s filth and squalor, through streets that smell of piss and offal, and I find you here with a man whose face decorates wanted posters all over the city, is it not necessary to worry what he has done to you, _al'akhu al'asghar_?”

“He is my _lover_, ‘Dira, not my captor.”

“Oh! _Oh_\- and I suppose that makes it better, then! Ah, _ma hura', 'akhi_, what mess is this?” Her eyes widened with something of a mix between anger and surprise, but she relaxed her hand and let the blade fall to her side, releasing her hold on Julian’s hair.

“If you’ll allow me some time to explain,_ 'ukht_-.”

The zultar clattered against the glass display case on the sales counter as Yadira flopped rather ungracefully atop it, propping her ankle on her knee, arms folded. “Explain, then. And I hope you have some good four-day sharbot in this place, I’m parched.”

Alizée sighed. “Yes, I’ve some on ice upstairs. And please ask me before you put a blade to my lover’s throat again; that’s my job and he rather enjoys it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long hiatus, I had my wisdom teeth removed and this chapter is brought to you by painkillers.


End file.
